


Take a Knee

by verbaepulchellae



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Domme!Clarke, Dubious Consent, F/M, Grounder AU, Kneeling, Power Play, Smut, grounder!clarke, season one AU, sub!bellamy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 14:15:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7577287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbaepulchellae/pseuds/verbaepulchellae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the room, there’s a raised rock platform and a large, stone hewn chair. There’s a girl there, honey-blonde hair loose down her back except for several thick braids that run through it. She wears the face paint of a warrior, the red and black swirls across her face making her look almost inhuman, but she’s dressed in light clothing- flowing material that falls across her body invitingly. In Bellamy’s exhaustion, he thinks she looks like statues of greek goddesses, the folds of her dress so perfectly pleated and still over her body that she, too, could be carved from stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Knee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raincityruckus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raincityruckus/gifts).



> This all happened because @Raincityruckus poked the dirty, morally grey part of my brain with the prompt:
> 
> "A filthy dirty grounder!clarke, skyperson!bellamy au. Dubiously moral hook ups with clarke at least ostensibly running the show." 
> 
> Babe, you get what you ask for.
> 
> Please mind the warnings. This definitely has moments of dub-con in it. 
> 
> And thank you to @storyskein and @cetaprincipess on tumblr for beta-ing and being super helpful.

Bellamy has been a prisoner for two weeks and four days. Maybe five. He’s not sure, there was the period of time after he killed his guard, the third time he had tried to escape, when he had been beaten so bad he had passed out from the pain. After that, he’s had his wrists bound constantly, hobbled at night and left to sleep on the cold, hard earth, outside of the ring of firelight. He’s been given dry crusts of bread, fruit close to rotting, a swig of water at the end of the night and first thing in the morning, and again at noon. 

He hasn’t given up though. Not yet. The thought of Octavia and the rest of the near hundred kids keeps him trying. He was only supposed to be gone two nights, and his head spins with what could have happened to them since he left on his scouting mission with Finn. God, maybe Finn had been lucky: an arrow through the eye, dead almost instantly. He needs to get back.

The fourth time he makes an attempt for freedom, the huge grounder, the one with the beard braided with colorful twine and metal beads, cuffs him so sharply across the head that Bellamy drops to the ground, vision swimming and takes the kick to the stomach, another boot in the mouth that knocks him onto his back. His ribs still ache from the time before and he lies still, spitting up blood and bracing himself for another blow. 

“I have had enough,” the Grounder spits. It lands wet and slimy on Bellamy’s cheek. “Hand me your knife, Lucas. He’s more trouble than he’s fucking worth.”

Maybe if they kill him he can stop fighting. It’s a thought. He’s tried so hard. Miller- he’ll know what to do. And Octavia, she’ll be alright, she’s tough. They probably think he’s dead anyway, they’ll never know that he took death so easily, never know he wasn’t strong enough to fight his way back to them. 

“Stop it, Mikal,” Lucas says, leaning over his horse’s neck and hardly sparing Bellamy more than a withering glance. “We’re almost there. Then he’ll be her problem. Think of the trade agreement.”

“If he tries one more time, I’m done,” Mikal warns. He hauls Bellamy up by the collar of his shirt and shakes him until he takes his own weight on his feet again, stumbling a bit. “I hope she puts you to work in the mines,” he tells Bellamy viciously. “They’d break you there- whip you until learned to obey, starve you until you learned to beg. They’d keep you in the dark so long you’d go blind. You’d never taste fresh air again.”

“Mikal,” Lucas drawls. “Do you want to make it more difficult to get him there?”

“He killed Hathor. He should know what happens to murderers.”

Lucas shakes his head. They keep going.

They bring Bellamy to a craggy mountain, up to village living on the sheer face of the cliffs. The people here have cut their dwellings into the mountain and scale ladders and ropes to get to the plateau above. Bellamy isn’t strong enough, after weeks of being captive and little food and less water, another beating the last night before they got here after one final desperate attempt to escape, to manage the climb down. Instead they blindfold him and bind him, lower him down on ropes like they might an animal and shame curls deep in his chest. 

He is washed, more a quick dosing in lukewarm water to get the dried blood and grime off his face, the smell off his body, before his captors gag him to quiet his cursing and lead him to a stunning, arching room. It’s lit in late evening sun, thin, sculpted pillars rising unbroken from floor to vaulted ceiling create windows and Bellamy smells flowers and something dark and musky burning.

At the end of the room, there’s a raised rock platform and a large, stone hewn chair. There’s a girl there, honey-blonde hair loose down her back except for several thick braids that run through it. She wears the face paint of a warrior, the red and black swirls across her face making her look almost inhuman, but she’s dressed in light clothing- flowing material that falls across her body invitingly. In Bellamy’s exhaustion, he thinks she looks like statues of greek goddesses, the folds of her dress so perfectly pleated and still over her body that she, too, could be carved from stone. 

“My Lady,” Lucas growls from somewhere behind Bellamy after he’s pushed Bellamy forward so that he almost stumbles and falls. “We present a gift from Trikru.”

The girl turns to look at Lucas, bored, and her eyes fall on Bellamy. He meets her gaze, calling on the fortitude that kept his mother and Octavia safe for so many years on the Ark, and glares at her. 

“He looks more like threat than a gift,” the girl observes in a low, quiet voice. “Is this Trikru trying to make amends for their blunders against me or is it that they’re trying to teach me a lesson?”

They speak in English and Bellamy wonders if it’s for formality’s sake or because his captors want him to hear them discuss him like a thing rather than the person they bound and gagged and beat their way across forests and hills to get here. Either way, he appreciates the sudden, clear discomfort behind him as Lucas and Mikal are clearly caught out by the girl.

“It’s a promise,” Lucas manages. “This boy comes from Skaikru, invaders of Trikru territory. Fiercest of their warriors, and Trikru still managed to subdue him. You’ll have this might on your side if you agree to reopen your mines to us, My Lady.”

“Skaikru?” The girl repeats. “A rare bird, indeed.” Her lips quirk at her own stupid joke and Bellamy again quietly enjoys Mikal and Lucas’ loss for words in the face of the girl’s wit. “So Trikru comes to me with a battered prisoner, begging to reopen trade after the Commander herself cut my kingdom out of the coalition. Does the Commander know you’re here?”

“The Commander does not speak for all of the coalition when she exiled Appalakru. Trikru still relies on our trade agreement. We had hoped you’d be willing to work with us independently.”

“I see, as this Skaikru boy represents what again?” Bellamy would bristle at being called a boy but he’s too tired.

“We thought he would be a good addition to your mine workforce. He’s tough, sure, but he’ll break easily enough,” Mikal says with an offhanded sort of cruelty and Bellamy remembers his threat about the mines: whipping, starving, going blind from the dark. At the time it had washed over him as an empty threat, something he could inevitably escape from. But now, here, trapped in this cliff carved throne room and no conceivable way out, the horror of it overwhelms him. 

“Will he?” The girl’s interest is piqued as she stands and steps off the platform, head cocked as she considers Bellamy. She’s a head shorter than him and he can’t help but lift himself to his full height as she approaches, eyes narrowing. She takes in his expression, doesn’t bother to hide the way she looks over the rest of his body. “You certainly weren’t terribly concerned about getting him to me in one piece. Does Trikru torture their prisoners now?”

Lucas and Mikal shift uncomfortably behind him and Bellamy can’t help the satisfaction that this girl makes them uncomfortable. “He… put up a fight,” Mikal finally says. “And they tortured and killed one of our own.”

“Two armed warriors against an unarmed boy and you still had to beat him to get him to me?” The girl asks skeptically. “What use is he to me in the mines if you’ve already damaged him?”

Once again, Mikal and Lucas seem to fumble for words and Bellamy sees the girl repress an amused smile. She’s playing with them.

“My Lady, the boy is strong. He lead and fought for Skaikru. We made sure he came to you docile enough that he could be controlled at the very least,” Lucas says quickly. 

“Is that so?” She lifts her hand, as if to touch Bellamy’s face and he flinches back from her, refuses to let himself be handled as a commodity, because fuck them. The girl raises an unimpressed eyebrow and drops her hand. “I’m not sure docile is the right word,” she says, voice cool. “But you’re right: he seems strong enough. And he looks like he’s used to hard work.”

The lowkey panic Bellamy’s been keeping at bay suddenly overwhelms him. This girl, this Queen as is clear from her power over the men behind him, controls his fate. If she agrees with Lucas and Mikal, if she sends him to the mines, Bellamy is as good as dead. There’s no way he gets back to O, to the rest of the kids if he’s put down there. He can’t take that risk: he will fight until he dies to get home, but he can’t go to the mines. 

Before he can even think it through, Bellamy drops to his knees and leans forward, nearly losing his balance, pressing his face into the girl’s thigh, high up, so that his forehead rests just below her hip bone. It’s the only gesture of supplication that comes to him, the only way he can think to ask for mercy, gagged and stifled as he is. 

There’s a stillness that comes from his action, and Bellamy blearily realizes he may have made a huge mistake. He could be killed instantly for this, could be tortured. He doesn’t know grounder customs, he doesn’t know how badly he could have just fucked up. But instead of rough hands hauling him off and away from the girl, a sword or axe or crude cudgel swung at his head, gentle fingers card into his hair and cup the back of his head. 

“Oh,” the girl says above him, and there’s a touch of amusement to her voice, but a surprising sweetness too. “Oh hello there.” 

Her voice is as soft as the movement of her fingers as she pets at his head and it’s almost more than Bellamy can stand after nearly a month of beatings and chapped and blistered skin, harsh words and constantly moving further and further away from home. He presses closer, rolls his forehead against her and finds the silk hem of her robe and curls his fingers into it, it’s light texture the softest thing he’s ever felt. She smells good, a little musky, like whatever incense is burning, but also clean and sweet. God, he doesn’t want to die.

“I-I’m sorry, my lady,” Lucas stutters above him. “Mikal get him-”

“No,” the girls says, hand tightening in Bellamy’s hair as if to keep him close to her, making him wince. “No, don’t touch him.”

Her fingers slide down his jaw and draw his face upward so that Bellamy looks at her. She studies him, eyes careful but soft as well, and she thumbs lightly across the scar on his lip. Bellamy is almost ashamed of the way the gag pulls his lips wide but he doesn’t have room for it in him, the only thing that matters is somehow convincing this girl to let him live.

“You don’t belong in the mines, do you?” She asks him as she searches his eyes, reading the plea there, and her voice is pitched low just for him. Bellamy realizes she’s actually asking him and he swallows, roughly around the gag, shakes his head. The girl makes a soft maou and tucks her thumb into the gag against his cheek, eases it slowly from his mouth and Bellamy takes a grateful deep breath of air, feels how dry his throat is. 

“Please,” Bellamy manages to whisper, ignores the sound of Mikal and Lucas shifting behind him because they don’t matter anymore. Nothing but this girl he’s on his knees before matters right now. He can’t quite bring himself to call her by her title, but manages to move his lips over the words. The girl is watching his mouth and she strokes her knuckles over his cheek, her blue eyes dark.

It’s such a gentle touch, so intimate that Bellamy’s eyes fall closed, just for a moment. He’s never been touched like this before. He’d gotten casual affection from his mother, big hugs from Octavia when he came home after school or cadet training. Roma and the other girls at camp had sucked his cock and fucked him, but no one’s touched him like this little queen is now: softly, as if he were delicate.

“No,” she decides. “No, I think you belong with me.” Her hand on the back of Bellamy’s head guides him back into the safe darkness of her hip, and Bellamy bows his head, lets himself take a deep breath that shudders through him, lets himself feel safe, just for a moment, hiding his face against this girl.

He’s not sure what happens after that, relief and exhaustion suddenly hitting him so hard it makes his perception a little hazy. He just breathes in this girl’s smell, lets her fingers’ idle movement in his hair lull him, vaguely aware of gruff voices and the girl’s quiet but commanding voice answering whatever is being put forward. 

Time passes and he realizes it’s just them alone in the room. His knees ache a little from kneeling on stone, but no more than the rest of his body. Both of the girl’s hands are in his hair now, running from the crown of his head down to the back of his neck, turning in the swirls of his messy curls. 

“Pretty bird,” he hears her murmur after a little while, her stupid joke sounding affectionate now. “Let me get another look at you.”

Bellamy realizes that he has no idea what he’s gotten himself into, what the girl has in mind for him other than the fact that he will not yet be spending the rest of his days doing hard labor. He’s not free, that much is clear by her hands’ movements, already possessive on his head, a little demanding when she puts her fingers under his chin and tips his face up again. Bellamy blinks at her in the light after the welcome darkness of the hollow of her hip. 

“They weren’t kind to you,” the girl observes, as she turns his face carefully, taking in the scrapes and cuts Bellamy can feel pulling at his skin. He winces when she touches her finger lightly to one right below his eye, across his cheekbone. She makes a soft sound in response. “We’re going to clean you up, ok? You’re going to be ok.”

She sounds so sure, so nice after everything Bellamy’s been through, not just these last two weeks but even before that, fending for the lives of a hundred kids and his sister on a strange and dangerous planet; a year of loneliness and isolation on the Ark after Octavia was locked up and their mother floated; all the years before that of sickening anxiety and fear of discovery… no one has ever sounded so certain about him being alright as this girl does now.

She helps him stand up, his legs stiff and weak and she steadies him as he sways slightly.

“My name is Clarke,” she tells him quietly as she runs her hands down his arms to lift his still bound hands and study the way the rope bites into his wrists. “I’m the leader of this ‘kru.” Her fingers touch the knot, tight and stiff from the water he was doused in and his sweat. Bellamy watches her fingers careful examination.

“Bellamy Blake,” he says and his voice is hoarse. The girl looks up and smiles at him and then pulls a knife from the belt of her dress. Bellamy stiffens, tenses his body on instinct, but she just cuts through the tight ropes on his wrists and sheathes her knife again. 

“Better?” she asks, unwinding the rope from his wrists and tracing her fingers over the deep purple marks. 

“Thank you,” Bellamy mumbles, too tired to manage more. His hands tingle with renewed blood flow and suddenly the rush of it is too much and he knows he’s going to collapse. He doesn’t remember anything after that.

He wakes to sunshine; not the rich, heady glow of late afternoon, but the sweet, bright sunlight of morning. He doesn’t remember where he is at first, and lies frozen for a moment, confused by the soft sheets over him and the strange, long forgotten feeling of being _clean_. And then he remembers- his captures, the weeks of beatings and an empty stomach, the cliff village and the strange, beautiful girl who let him bury his head in her thigh and find solace there. 

Bellamy struggles to sit up, wincing at the pull of sore muscles under bruised skin, but he pushes through. He has to get back to Octavia, he has to get back to the dropship. 

He’s wearing soft, Grounder-made clothes, he vaguely realizes as he stumbles across the room and braces himself for a moment on a chair back. The room he’s in is light and airy, the same high columns rising from low walls to create wide, open windows- not a lot of privacy but a far cry from a prison, he thinks. There are no guards, no chains, no bars. His hands and feet are unbound. For all intents and purposes… he’s free. Bellamy shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the wooziness that a full, deep night’s sleep brings. He doubts covert escape is possible, not with the open air cliff face and his unfamiliarity with the village, but talking to the girl, to Clarke, his memory provides with the image of deep blue eyes, persuading her… that he knows how to do. 

Bellamy takes a breath and straightens, calls on all the strength he has left, all the years of playacting on the Ark, the months of posturing as a cadet in the guard, the power he managed to begin to accrue, to give him some kind of crazy bravery. He’d managed nearly a hundred juvenile criminals on the ground, rallied them, organized them… he can handle one teenage Grounder queen.

He makes his way to the door, ashamed by how hard it is- his body sore and exhausted, but still, he makes it. The sunlight is warm on his face and he takes a deep breath, realizes how hungry he still is, how thirsty. And how quiet it is.

While the rooms of this village are large and airy, peaceful and elegant, the path that winds along the face of the cliff is narrow and Bellamy makes the mistake of glancing over the edge. Fuck, it’s a long way down. Bellamy’s legs feel a little wobbly with lack of food and maybe a little bit of fear too, but if he sticks close to the wall of the cliff face, he thinks he can make it. He remembers, he thinks, that he had been lowered onto a wider outcropping of rock. If he can find that, he might be able to find a way to scale the cliff face a little more easily.

He begins to pick his way along the path, careful of his feet and the small footholds that have been worn into the rock, when, from around the corner uphead, a girl appears, moving gracefully and easily along the path as if she didn’t fear the plunge. The sunlight reflects off her golden hair and Bellamy realizes, with a lurch, it’s the little Queen from the night before. Without the paint on her face, she looks so much younger, sweeter, like a girl from Alpha Station: happy and well fed in her simple linen pants and cropped, tailored shirt.

“I was just coming to see you,” Clarke greets him, seeming not at all surprised to find him up. “Looks like you’re feeling better.” She smiles at him, careful but sure of herself. 

“Uh, yeah,” Bellamy mutters and pushes himself up to his full height. “Better.” Looming over her helps but she doesn’t seem at all intimidated. 

“Well that’s good.” Clarke cocks her head up and considers him and Bellamy wonders if she expects him to kneel again, grovel. Fuck that. He cocks his right back down at her and lifts his chin.

“Is it?”

It makes something flash in her eyes, a little like mischief, a little like she’s accepting a challenge. But when she opens her mouth, all she says is, “Are you hungry?”

Bellamy is starving but his pride wars with admitting to weakness in front of Clarke. The memory of burying his face against her body last night makes him flush and he needs to be on equal footing with her, needs to assert himself. 

“Are you?” He asks with a leer, the kind that he learned to mimic from the guards and other cadets who looked at girls in the hallways, at his mother.

“Charming,” Clarke says, not seeming at all uncomfortable under his eyes. “I was on my way to breakfast, Bellamy Blake. Why don’t you come with me?”

Bellamy opens his mouth, tries to think of something to say to get the upperhand in this conversation when all he can think about is how hungry he is. And Clarke is offering him food. No one’s offered him anything so peaceably before, without any stipulations. He doesn’t trust it. Nothing ever comes free.

“I’m alright,” he says, even though he thinks the last thing he ate was a crust of bread yesterday morning, but Bellamy’s stomach chooses that moment to growl with hunger and Clarke actually laughs. It’s a lovely, carrying sound, but it just pisses Bellamy off. He’s been kidnapped, beaten and humiliated. The last thing he needs is to be laughed at.

“Fuck off, Princess,” Bellamy snarls and in a move that he doesn’t think through, crowds her into the wall of the cliff, bracketing her in with his arms and looming over her. Clarke, again, simply looks up at him with her cool blue eyes and considers him. 

“Oh don’t be mad,” she placates, catching sight of his expression. Her expression softens. “I’m sorry, the last few days must have been awful for you. But you made it, and you’re safe here. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You?” Bellamy snarls. “I’d like to see you try.”

A smile touches the girl’s mouth, chilly and cool and reflected in her eyes. “I don’t think you would.” She places a hand on Bellamy’s chest and pushes ever so slightly. “One good hit, right here, and you’d be falling to your death.” She twists her fingers in his shirt to hold on to him even as she shoves him, catching his weight and unbalancing him and he suddenly remembers the open path, how narrow and rocky it is, how Clarke has the safety of the cliff at her back and he has a fast, too easy fall to his death at his. 

Clarke reels him back in and lets him go. “Come on,” she says like nothing has happened between them, “I, at least, am hungry. Let’s get something to eat.” She smiles and ducks past him, leaving Bellamy to stare after her before he shakes himself. He starts after her carefully, doesn’t see anything else for it. 

_Watch, Bellamy_ , Aurora whispers in the back of his mind, _Look out for those who will hurt us and those who can help us._ _Keep them close_. _Keep them happy_. _Give them what they want._ He had been five years old, and Aurora’s stomach was just beginning to swell and grow and Bellamy had been terrified. They were going to get caught, he knew it, and Aurora would be floated and he would follow, sucked into the empty, lonely darkness of space, where, unable to fully understand death, he imagined he would float alone forever.

He had clung to those words his whole life, watched as his mother hid her stomach under loose clothes, charmed guards who controlled rations, charmed authorities who determined inspection schedules, disappeared at night after Octavia was born and came back with shadows in her eyes and a hoarse voice. Bellamy watched and he learned how to smile through his fear, how to keep his head down except when someone wanted him to pick his head up, learned to tamp down the anger and constant anxiety and pretend that everything was okay even after Octavia cried through the night from colic. 

Bellamy doesn’t know who Clarke is yet, if she can help him or hurt him, but right now she’s offering him food and maybe he can convince her to let him go. Clarke doesn’t look back at him, just leads him on the winding path that slopes upward, cutting across the face of cliff to a higher level of rooms. Here there are people, happy, sun tanned and hardy looking people who scramble between the rooms and across the cliff face with such dexterity that Bellamy feels clumsy for the first time in his life. No one spares him a second glance, but everyone greets Clarke. It’s always respectful, a quick little head bob, a murmured word or two after stepping out of her way. She gets a few smiles, a few pats on the back from some of the older villagers, but for the most part, Clarke is treated as if she is a separate entity, not quite one with her people the same the busy movement of villagers suggest the rest of them fit together. 

Clarke finally, finally ducks into a room, and Bellamy won’t admit that climbing in the heat and the sun have made him dizzy, but the relief of the cool, dark room must show on his face because Clarke smiles at him. “Come sit,” she encourages him, already sinking down on a pillow in front of a low table laid out with food. Bellamy sits down next to her and has to clench his hands in the fabric of his pants to keep from tearing into the shank of meat on the table, steaming with the rich smell of spices and herbs.

When he looks at Clarke, she’s watching him. She has such an open face, curious, intrigued, while at the same time giving so little away about what she’s thinking. It makes Bellamy uneasy, not yet knowing how to read this Grounder Queen when his whole life has depended on figuring out what people want. 

“You said you’re the leader here,” Bellamy starts carefully, trying to ignore the way his mouth is watering. 

“I am,” Clarke says and reaches across the table, takes a dried piece of fruit, a hunk of bread, cuts a thick slice of meat, still pink in the middle, and hands the plate to Bellamy before she starts to fill her own. “For the last three months. Our previous leader was killed by the Commander for challenging her stance on the coalition.” Clarke gives the information freely enough as she tears off a slice of bread and puts in her mouth, looks at Bellamy in amusement as he resists the food in front of him. “Am I going to have to eat everything on my plate before you touch yours? Are Skaikru really so suspicious?”

“Just careful,” Bellamy says and takes a bite of bread himself. It’s so fresh, a thick crust and a soft, light flavor, textured with seeds and sweetened with honey. Bellamy nearly chokes on it in surprise, it’s so much better than anything he can remember tasting. He takes another bite and before he can remind himself to be careful, eats a dried apple, several of the dried berries on his plate and actually groans at the rich, dark flavor of the meat, better than the unsalted, unseasoned boar that they cooked at camp and which always came out dry and gamey.

Clarke passes him a cup of water. “I don’t blame you,” she says quietly. “It’s not easy being in charge. How long did you lead your people?”

Bellamy shrugs. “My people have only just made it to the Ground. I took control once we arrived. On the Ark…” he realizes Clarke has no concept of the Ark, of the strict, monochrome society that makes tension raise the hair along the back of Bellamy’s neck, anxiety curl in his stomach. 

“How were you chosen to lead?” She asks, not looking at Bellamy, but reaching for another piece of bread to put on his plate. There’s a challenge in her eyes, blatant now, when Bellamy looks up at her and he realizes she’s feeling him out, looking for push back to her authority. She must expect it from him, being as young as she is, as fresh as she is in her power. Bellamy knows that feeling well, feels it rise within himself at this girl’s presence.

Bellamy thinks of the girls, of Roma, with their witty laughter and their smiles, of the way the boys in the camp eye’d them, admired them, showed off for them. How, once Bellamy had caught Roma’s interested look, he had fucked her in the back of the dropship, quick and dirty but well enough that Roma’s breath shuddered out against his neck and she whispered to her friends about him. The boys started to look at Bellamy with reverence, and Murphy and Mbege had been easy to recruit after that. It was easy. Sex had made him powerful. Sex had put him in control. 

“I proved myself,” is all Bellamy says, and Clarke nods. “What about you? You can’t be more than sixteen,” he skews his guess young, just to see how she reacts. “How do your people trust a child to be in charge?””

“I fought for it,” Clarke says quietly. “And I won.” 

“Over everyone else in this village, everyone older with more experience, you won?”

“It’s not so much about age,” Clarke offers, lifting a single eyebrow. “It’s about knowing what to do. The Commander is only a little older than I am and she leads the coalition.”

“But you’ve split from her,” Bellamy recalls from his exhaustion yesterday. “You’re leading alone.”

“I am,” Clarke says, not at all concerned by the fact. “I am what my people need.”

Bellamy thinks of Mikal and Lucas and how Clarke danced verbal circles around them, controlled the conversation for all that his captors had planned to control her. Clarke, this little Grounder Queen, has a power to her that Bellamy recognizes. 

“Clarke,” Bellamy says, leaning forward on the table and meeting her gaze, narrowing his eyes in a way he’s learned is intimidating. “My people need me. I need to get back to them. I appreciate what you did for me, yesterday. But my place isn’t here.”

Clarke leans back on her hands and looks at him. “It is now,” she tells him, simply. 

_Keep them happy_ , Aurora whispers. _Figure out what they want_.

Clarke kept him for a reason. Bellamy waits for the rest of the day, following Clarke around the village, lets her show him the layout like he’ll be staying here. She doesn’t ever say it explicitly, but from the way Clarke looks at him, Bellamy knows he sees her as one of her people now. The proprietary nature of it rubs Bellamy the wrong way, but he’s careful, if he wants to get home he needs Clarke to trust him enough to not keep him under constant watch. 

It comes, finally, late in the evening, when Clarke settles next to him after dinner. They’d eaten with the whole village, Clarke at the tall, raised dais all alone, dressed once again in her flowing dress, hair unbound down her back. Bellamy had sat alone as well, leant back against the rock wall, picking half heartedly at his food. He doesn’t even know if the delinquents are still alive, if the kids that had rallied so bravely around him, idolized him, fought for him, have made it. He thinks of Octavia, defiant, angry blue eyes when he’d last seen her, right before he left with Finn for the depot. Even amidst a hundred kids, Bellamy had been alone, in the end. 

“Hey,” Clarke says with a smile, the silk of her dress fluttering around her. “First day here. How are you doing?”

“Alright,” Bellamy says. Clarke smiles and then hands him one of the two cups she’s brought with her. Bellamy meets her eyes and takes a sip of it, just barely managing not to sputter at the harsh burn of alcohol. Clarke grins at him and takes a sip of her own drink. “So Appalakru does know how to have fun,” Bellamy chuckles, voice a little rough.

“We manage,” Clarke says but the smile on her face is the lightest he’s seen yet. “Everything in moderation, right?”

“Right,” Bellamy agrees, smiling a little in spite of himself. “And here I was thinking you weren’t a typical teenager.”

Clarke’s eyes drop to his mouth momentarily and then flick back up to meet his and _oh_. Bellamy remembers how she looked at him yesterday, in her war paint, her eyes sweeping across his body. She _is_ just a girl, just like the one’s back at camp, the ones he used to establish his power. Bellamy shifts ever so slightly towards her, testing, and Clarke smiles, cocks her head to the side, a subtle, confident response. 

This he knows how to do, this is where he’s sure of himself. If he gives Clarke this, if he fucks her, perhaps he can get enough of an advantage to let her let him go. He reaches out and touches her knee, brushes his thumb gently over her kneecap, a mockery of tenderness he was never given. Clarke smiles, really smiles, a brightness in her face. 

“You want to show me your room?” Bellamy asks, pitching his voice low and dominant, giving her a smirk. 

Clarke pushes herself up and grins at Bellamy, girlish and sweet. “Come on,” she says. 

They’ve lit the narrow path in torches spaced every ten yards or so, keeping the way well lit for all of the villagers. Clarke leads him up the path, back to the highest level. She pauses and smiles at him, flirtatious and inviting and Bellamy catches her around the waist, pulls her close, hands hot on her hips. He ducks his head and kisses her jaw, trailing his lips, trying to get her to melt against his chest. Clarke sighs, but squeezes his arm, steps away from him and through a hanging curtain. 

When Bellamy follows her, he finds himself in a small but beautiful room. Clarke is already in the middle of the room, pulling bracelets and rings from her fingers. The certainty with which she does it gives Bellamy pause. There’s no nervousness in her, none that he can find when he searches her and that makes him nervous. He’d relied on Roma’s sweet uncertainty: she had been curious and posturing, just like him, but she’d been in lock up since she was fourteen. Clarke… she’s something else entirely, with her slow, easy smile that spreads across her face as she sees his hesitation. She holds out her hand to Bellamy and he realizes he’s way out of his depth here.

He takes a breath and crosses the room to her, tries to wrap his hands around her waist and tries to kiss her but Clarke stops him with a hand on his chest.

“Why don’t you remind me how nice you look when you’re on your knees,” Clarke suggests, looking up into his face and her voice pitched soft, a cool authority laced through it. Bellamy stares at her, taken aback, but when she gives him a nod, at once encouraging and expectant, he hears Aurora’s voice whisper _Give them what they want_.

A little dizzily, Bellamy sinks down, one knee hitting the floor and then the other and he sits back on his heels and looks up at Clarke. To keep her happy, to have her keep him close and gain her confidence, Bellamy will do anything she asks him.

Clarke strokes her fingers down Bellamy’s temples and over the joint of his jaw, presses in slightly and Bellamy lets his jaw relax and fall open to relieve the pressure. Clarke’s gaze drops to his lips and Bellamy feels his face heat at how possessive her eyes are. He clears his throat and looks down.

“Oh, are you feeling shy?” Clarke laughs and slips her fingers back into his hair, scratches lightly. “Look at me.” He lifts his eyes to hers and fights not to look away. She smiles as she brushes his hair off his forehead, hand slow. “Bellamy, do you know what I’m going to ask you to do?”

Bellamy has an idea, a vague one, about what she could want, with her soft touches and dark eyes, with him kneeling in front of her like this. But the idea is so… so… so much that he doesn’t know how to verbalize it. For all the sex he’s had on the ground, those first few weeks when Earth still seemed relatively safe and like an escape, he’s never put his mouth on a girl, never allowed anyone to use him that way for their pleasure. He’d fingered Roma and her friends, fucked them and liked when they came on his cock. But this… it’s so much control to give up, so revealing and intimate that he’s never imagined he’d want to eat out a girl he trusted, let alone this.

And then again, if he’s wrong with this, he risks scandalizing Clarke, who can’t be that much older than Roma, still at an age where inexperience or naivete is plausible. He’s not sure which of the two options would be worse, so Bellamy shakes his head and Clarke laughs, soft and low.

“No? Really?” Clarke shakes her head in amusement and steps back. “Stay right there,” she instructs, and lifts her hands from Bellamy’s head to go to the clasp of her belt. She unwinds the soft leather from her waist and her dress billows around her. Then her fingers are at the ties at her side, undoing them, fingers fast and practiced with the delicate knots. Time seems to slow down as Clarke finishes untying the last knot and draws back the soft silks of her dress, lets them slip from her shoulders and pool around her feet.

Bellamy drops his eyes again because she’s so much to take in. She’s an expanse of pale smooth skin, her hair falling over her shoulders not long enough to hide the fullness of her breasts, her tight pink nipples. Her stomach is soft with a gentle curve to it, a prelude to the thick, tight curve of her hips and thighs. And there, between her thighs, the wiry thatch of hair, darker than the honey blonde of her head, and the hint of her dusky pink cunt. Bellamy takes a sharp breath as he feels her touch his shoulder. “Come on, Bellamy,” Clarke says softly. “You can look at me, it’s okay.”

Bellamy feels his hands shake a bit as he lifts his head to follow her command and tries to focus on her face. He would feel so much better about this if he were standing, if Clarke was a girl back at camp and she wanted him the way Roma wanted him. Wanted him to be a little rough with her, wanted him to call the shots and pretend like he knew what he was doing. She’s beautiful, undeniably so and he wants her, but kneeling in front of this strange girl, Bellamy has never felt more helpless in his life. 

“Uh,” he coughs and clears his throat. “I.. what do you want me to do?” 

Clarke grins at that and shifts closer so that her hips are right at eye level. Bellamy can smell her, he realizes as he flushes, smell the rich, heady scent of her arousal. He can’t help the way his eyes drop to her cunt, quick before he snaps them back up to her face, safer territory, but not before he sees that she’s wet. God, she’s getting off on the fact that he’s down on his knees in front of her.

“I want you to make me come,” Clarke says clearly and curls her hand back into his hair at the base of his head, fists it surprisingly tight and gives his head a soft little shake, not mean, but Bellamy feels her reminder of who’s in charge here. 

“Can I…” Bellamy starts and then flushes even further at how gruff his voice is. “With my fingers?”

Clarke cocks her head. “No,” she says like she’s just decided it. “You have such a nice mouth, Bellamy. I want you to use that to get me off. Just your lips and your tongue.”

“I’ve never…” Bellamy starts, fighting against the anxiety that’s settling in his stomach. “I don’t know how to do that for you,” he manages.

“No?” Clarke asks, and instead of sounding disappointed or annoyed, Bellamy thinks she sounds pleased. “That’s alright. Give it your best shot anyway.”

Bellamy closes his eyes and tries to remember how to breath. This is so much better than the mines, he reminds himself, getting a pretty girl off, even as the thought still makes his breath catch because giving up that much power, letting Clarke guide his head, push her hips into his face, hold him in place is so far beyond anything Bellamy has ever trusted anyone else with.

“Come on, Bellamy,” Clarke says again, encouraging but a little impatient. “I’m not going to hurt you. Are you worried about the taste?” Bellamy opens his eyes when Clarke lets go of his hair and watches as she trails her own hand down her stomach, curls her fingers to slip between the lips of her cunt. She sighs softly at her own touch and then her fingers come away wet and she’s offering them to Bellamy. “Try it.”

Bellamy looks up at her face, trying to judge if he’s got room to negotiate, if he can talk her into letting him fuck her instead, but Clarke’s face is expectant with a cool certainty. She raises her eyebrows when he meets her eyes. “Go on,” she says.

Bellamy takes a breath, and then leans forward and delicately lips at her fingers, then pulls back. The iodinic tang of her arousal sharp on his tongue when he licks his lips, the lower musk of it filling his mouth. When he looks back up at Clarke, she looks like she wants to laugh. “Not so bad, right?”

No, it’s not too bad. It’s not bad at all, just tastes like sex. Bellamy shakes his head. 

“Yeah, have more,” Clarke urges, voice going low and she wiggles her slick fingers. Bellamy ducks his head forward again and tries to do as she asks without taking her fingers into his mouth or licking at them too obviously but Clarke isn’t having it. She catches his head with her other hand and then pushes her fingers against his lips, not too hard, but insistent enough that Bellamy has to open his mouth to her. Her fingers settle on top of his tongue and Bellamy takes a careful breath and looks up at her again, so goddamn unsure of himself.

“Suck,” Clarke says helpfully and taps her fingers down on his tongue. Bellamy can’t hold her gaze, closes his eyes as he gives her a tentative suck, knows his face is heating with the intimacy of it and Clarke’s soft laugh above him doesn’t help. “Oh good,” she whispers. “Very good. Keep going, get all of it.”

Bellamy sucks a little clumsily at her fingers, not used to having anything in his mouth like this, and when Clarke pushes in further, he gags. “You’re alright,” Clarke says gently and pets at his head. “What do you think? Want more?”

Bellamy doesn’t know how to answer that, because the taste itself is fine. He doesn’t mind it, could like it, maybe. But his heart beats uncomfortably hard in his chest as Clarke pulls her fingers out of his mouth and, with firm pressure on the back of his head, guides him towards her. Bellamy’s hands scrabble against the floor, looking for something to hold on to, something to ground him, help him fight against how nervous this makes him. He finds Clarke’s bare foot and unthinkingly curls his hand around it and clings to it. 

“You’ll do fine,” Clarke assures him, maybe seeing his ragged expression and arches her hips forward a bit so that her cunt brushes against his mouth. “Get me off, Bellamy.”

Bellamy has to shake off her hand at the last second and turns his head to mouth at her thigh instead. Clarke lets him, drops her hand to his shoulder instead, not gripping him but reminding him she’s there. Her thighs are soft under his lips and Bellamy buys himself time by running his lips up to her hip bones and then over her stomach, lipping at her skin in a way that makes her stomach muscles jump. Clarke indulges him for a moment, lets him get accustomed to being so close to her before she smooths her hand on his shoulder over to the nape of his neck and cups it.

“Alright,” she murmurs. “Let’s try again.”

Bellamy closes his eyes and presses his face into her stomach, hiding for a moment. His breath catches in his throat and he wishes that this wasn’t so terrifyingly huge of a concept for him. He’s trying Clarke’s patience at this point, and he’s making himself more anxious than he was to begin with.

“So nervous,” Clarke whispers above him and rubs at the back of his head. “If I don’t touch your head, is that going to help?”

“Yeah,” Bellamy manages to rasp. 

“Okay,” Clarke lifts her hands from his hair and resettles them on his shoulders. “Give it a try, Bellamy.” There’s an edge to her voice now and Bellamy swallows. He can do this. He can get this girl off. It’s no worse than going on a suicide mission to a radiation soaked planet.

Bellamy settles lower on his knees and noses tentatively between Clarke’s legs, the sharp smell of her filling his nose and making him huff. Her hair tickles his nose and Clarke widens her stance slightly and cants her hips forward so that her cunt is angled toward him. 

It’s flushed and slick and when Bellamy brushes his lips across her tentatively, she sighs and presses forward. Bellamy kisses at her, a little clumsy in it. He knows, technically, where Roma liked it when he rubbed at her while he was fucking her and he tries to kiss in that area, apply pressure with his lips, and friction. Clarke lets him for a while, her breath soft and fingers light on his shoulders, then one of her hands lifts, but instead of going to his head, she slips her hand between Bellamy’s mouth and her cunt.

She spreads her fingers and catches the lips of her labia, drawing them apart and Bellamy can’t look at her for a moment, the wet, pink skin overwhelming. “Lick here,” Clarke says quietly, and when he looks back up she’s tapping her finger against her clit, a small nub at the top of her cunt. Bellamy takes a breath and leans back in, focuses his lips in that area and fights down the embarrassment at how the slick of Clarke’s cunt smears a bit across his chin. Clarke laughs a little and squeezes his shoulder. “Lick, Bellamy,” she says again.

Bellamy steadies himself with a breath and does, just poking the tip of his tongue out between his lips and touching it to her clit. Clarke’s breath catches and he looks up at her. She’s watching him with her pretty dark eyes and she grins at him. “Doing good,” she whispers. “More tongue. I like it when it’s wet.”

Bellamy tries, flicks the tip of his tongue over her, dropping his eyes again so he doesn’t have to see her watching the movements of his mouth. He swipes his tongue sideways after a moment and that makes Clarke make a quiet noise. “Yes, Bellamy,” she says, her fingers flexing on his shoulders. “You’re getting it.” 

She lets him continue for a while, just flicking his tongue across her and some of Bellamy’s nervousness calms. “Hey,” Clarke says quietly when Bellamy’s fallen into a rhythm of working the tip of his tongue across her clit. “Get a little closer, ok?” she tugs a bit at his shoulders. “Use the rest of your tongue. Give me more, Bellamy.”

Bellamy takes a deep breath and pushes down the anxiety rising in his throat. He shifts carefully closer and opens his mouth a bit wider, gives her half lick, catching some of her hair and more of the tangy arousal that’s gathered on her lips. Clarke rocks her hips forward and Bellamy jerks his head back.

“No, no, come back,” Clarke demands, fingers clenching at his shoulders. “I’m not going to hurt you. Come here, I’m going to touch your head, come here.”

Clarke moves her hand from Bellamy’s shoulders to cup the back of his head and draw him back in and Bellamy goes, doesn’t fight against her strength. He presses his lips in a kiss against her clit in a silent apology, licks at her carefully again, trying to give her what she wants without her moving her hips against his face. When he glances quickly up at her face to gauge her reaction, she’s watching him, a small frown on her face and Bellamy shifts restlessly, worried, and squeezes at her foot. 

“You’re so sweet, aren’t you?” Clarke whispers and she doesn’t sound upset. “You’re trying, I know. You have to give a little more, though, ok? I want you to give me a big lick. Not just on my clit, but up my cunt. Can you do that?” 

It means getting closer than he’s had to yet and Bellamy fights against that fear of being trapped and pushed around, the fear of giving up so much control to someone else, but he tries. Clarke guides his head closer, moves her hips slowly so that Bellamy sees her coming and he can get close and swipe his tongue across her, licking across her labia.

“Good start. Deeper,” Clarke says and spreads her labia open again. Bellamy gives her another long lick and when he glances up at her she gives him a small little nod, eyebrows raised and Bellamy settles into it. Her flavor is stronger here and it coats his tongue, fills his mouth and nose so that everything he breathes in Clarke’s musky scent and rich taste. It’s a lot, god, it’s overwhelming and Bellamy clutches at her foot as her hands press him closer. 

“You got it, Bellamy,” Clarke gasps, sounding a little breathy. “You’re okay. You can do this. Get a little deeper, ok? Get in there.” She sounds good, Bellamy realizes. Soft and easy, sure of him in a way he’s never been of himself before. He thinks of her assuring him he’d be okay, yesterday, in her grand receiving hall. Even now, with his face pressed against her, her hands gripping his hair and his mouth full over her taste, feeling as out of control as he’s ever felt, her faith soothes something jagged in his chest. He believes her. He’s safe.

It’s a strange feeling, not one he immediately identifies. Aurora had always been white knuckled, tense, shoulders hunched and head down on the Ark. Bellamy had lived with a crick in his neck and back for years, watching his mother’s eyes dart frantically around their apartment even when inspection time had passed. But here, with Clarke’s assurance and encouragement, her sweetness even in her authority, Bellamy realizes his hand has eased in it’s tense grip on her foot. His fingers are simply curled, grounding himself in the touch of her skin. 

It should terrify him, that lack of fear, but it’s good. He can be good. At this.

The idea of it makes his breath catch and licks a little harder at her, grateful for that feeling, lets his tongue dip deeper in her cunt, right over where he’d fuck into her with his fingers or cock and Clarke actually whines quietly. “God, Bellamy. That’s good. Suck my clit. Up, yeah, there, suck on it.”

Bellamy follows the sharp tug on his hair, Clarke less careful and more demanding now, and resettles his mouth over her clit. He gives her a broad lick and she gasps again. “Come on,” she whines. “Get it in your mouth. Suck it.” It means smashing his nose against her pubic bone, means limiting his air supply and her maybe grinding into his face, holding him still and using him more than she has yet, but Bellamy tries. He closes his lips over her clit and draws it into his mouth, pulls at it so it drags a bit against his tongue and Clarke’s legs tremble.

“Yes, good. Good boy, that’s right,” she moans and does work her hips against his face, gets more of her arousal on his chin and lips, and he can feel a bit on his cheek. She’s dripping and handsy, alternating between petting at his head and gripping him, trying to pull him closer into her, making soft, consistant sounds above him and Bellamy squeezes her foot again, this time trying to reassure her.

He keeps sucking at her clit, tries licking at her in between pulls of his mouth, tongue soft and flat and she seems to like that, if the high pitched mewl she makes is anything to go by. He gets frantic with it, trying to get her where she desperately wants to be. “Yeah, come on,” she’s urging him. “Make me come. Make me come with your mouth.”

He’s trying and he hears himself whine with his own frustration at not being able to give her what she wants, what she’s using him for and she jerks at that. “Oh,” she whimpers. “You want to give it to me don’t you? I _knew_ it, Bellamy. I knew you’d be good at this.”

Bellamy hums into her, her words washing over him, settling a soft fog in his brain as he rubs his face into her, his lips going a little numb as they drag over her skin and Clarke swears, gripes his head and holds him still. “All tongue now,” she manages as she arches into his mouth. “Just keep your tongue on my clit, give me as much as you can, ok?”

Bellamy flattens his tongue as much as he can and works out how to pulse it against her clit without pulling back too much. His world has been reduced to Clarke’s voice and pretty whimpers, her deep taste on his tongue and arousal on his lips, her fingers in his hair, guiding him and encouraging him, scratching lightly against his scalp. He keeps working her until Clarke’s body jerks under his mouth and her fingers tighten painfully, her hips stuttering as she leans heavily into him. Bellamy stills his tongue carefully but can’t resist sucking softly at her, getting the last taste of her, the feeling of her soft tissue against his mouth before she’s guiding him away. 

Bellamy lets her and tucks his face into her leg, takes a ragged breath and realizes dizzily that he’s hard. Clarke’s petting over him even as her legs are trembling and her voice catches in her throat. “So good,” she’s saying. “Such a good boy, making me come. God,” her body shivers above him and Bellamy runs his fingers along the instep of his foot, just trying to help quiet her a little. She giggles at the touch and shifts, pushing back on his shoulders so he straightens. 

His mouth feels a little bruised and puffy and he knows his lips and chin are wet with her. He doesn’t know what to do about that and looks up at her uncertainly. Clarke is watching him and her eyes are on his mouth, her smile feral even as she’s still flushed from her orgasm. He did that to her. It sparks something weirdly like pride in Bellamy’s chest. “Did you like that?” She asks him, trailing her fingers across his chin and gathering the slick arousal. 

Bellamy nods, just once, quick and brief, because he did, but he doesn’t know what that’s supposed to say about him. He doesn’t know how to process that, especially when he’s still hard and kneeling in front of Clarke.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I can tell you liked it. Look, your cock is hard.” Her foot ghosts across his dick lightly, just pressing down enough that Bellamy’s hips jerk and he groans unexpectedly, the soft material of his pants almost too much against the sensitive head of his cock.

“Why don’t you take that out for me?” Clarke asks him, stroking her other hand through his hair again. “I want to see how much you liked eating me out.” 

Bellamy does as she asks, hands shaking a little as he undoes the ties on his pants and pulls out his cock. If she sucks it, or gives him a hand job, or fucks him, he might be able to rationalize all of this away but Clarke just takes a step back and sits down next to him on her knees, staring at the flushed tip of his cock that’s sticking out from his fist. Shit, he’s hard, and Clarke’s curious little head tilt makes Bellamy squeeze himself harder, can’t help the jerk of his hips into his own hand. 

“Yeah,” she half laughs, a girlish smile on her mouth which quickly turns intent. “Now make yourself come.” 

Bellamy stares at her, open mouthed and she smirks and presses her fingers to his lips again, still wet with the arousal she wiped off his face. It’s too late for Bellamy to fight her on this, he’s lost all traction and honestly, after everything he’s already done, what’s jerking himself under her eager eyes? He opens his mouth as he starts to jerk his fist fast at the head of his dick and lets her rest her fingers on his tongue. He sucks without her prompting and Clarke curls them in his mouth, doesn’t push as much towards the back of his throat.

It takes an embarrassingly short amount of time. He works his hand at the head of his cock in a quick, jerking rhythm and tries to focus on the hot curve of Clarke’s tits and the soft swell of her belly and thighs, but her eyes on his hand and his cock, her pleased, possessive smile and her fingers in his mouth distract him. Bellamy feels his face flush and he closes his eyes and sucks harder on her fingers, trying to distract her from staring at him but she only makes a happy, encouraging sound and Bellamy can’t help it, he comes.

Bellamy grunts and has to brace himself on his arm to keep from collapsing forward int Clarke’s lap. He opens his mouth to breathe around her fingers and Clarke gently pulls her hand away, stroking over his cheek, rubbing soothingly at his temple and playing with the soft fall of his hair there. She trails the fingers over her other hand through his cum on his stomach and his thighs as Bellamy catches his breath.

“That was hot,” she says, voice pitched sweet and soft for him, and she cups his cheek, makes him look up at her. “Did that feel good?”

“Uh. Uh-huh,” Bellamy manages and Clarke’s smile lights up her face. She rubs her thumb along his cheek bone mindful of his healing cuts. She looks at Bellamy like she owns him, wants him, and it’s so much. Clarke keeps surprising him with how she seems to know him without any judgement. Bellamy leans a little into her touch and Clarke makes another soft noise. She cups his cheek and ducks her head so she can look more fully into his eyes. They’re so deep and so blue and Bellamy feels a strange, certain peace.

“You did very well,” she tells him. “You’re going to get so good at eating me out; I can tell already.”

**Author's Note:**

> [I am hanging on tumblr!](http://verbam.tumblr.com)
> 
> Comments and kudos always make my day!


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